While it’s not exactly news that Waterloo Region’s tech community is highly regarded around the world, it’s definitely nice to hear it once in a while.

That’s exactly what happened Tuesday when U.S.-based business magazine Fast Company published a feature story about Waterloo’s growing stature in the technology world.

After detailing the mind-bending quantum ambitions of RIM co-founder Mike Lazaridis and the explosion of local startup activity, the piece turns for corroboration to Paul Graham, the Yoda-esque founder of Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator accelerator, the world’s most prestigious program of its kind.

“Something is going on in Waterloo,” Graham tells Fast Company, “because the applications we get from Waterloo students are better than those we get from students of any other university.”

Graham has had ample opportunity to assess YC applications from Waterloo in recent months. As Techvibes reported recently, no fewer than nine startups from the University of Waterloo’s VeloCity program – housed in the VeloCity Garage inside the Communitech Hub - were interviewed during the latest round of intakes, including Thalmic Labs.

The Thalmic team is in California now, working to join an increasingly illustrious list of Waterloo-spawned YC graduate companies, a list that includes Allerta/Pebble, the record-breaking smart-watch maker; Pair, the app that keeps couples connected; Vidyard, the analytics-rich video hosting platform; and BufferBox, the parcel-pickup kiosk startup that Google acquired in late 2012.

Needless to say, VeloCity’s director is thrilled at this latest bit of high-profile recognition.

"We were delighted to see the quote from Paul Graham today,” Mike Kirkup told Communitech. “It is an honour to play a role in one of many programs at the University of Waterloo that help students excel in accelerators like Y Combinator.”

Graham is not the first person from Y Combinator to remark positively on Waterloo Region’s tech talent. Local YC grads, many of whom have returned here to continue building their companies, have maintained close ties with Graham and others they met through the program, resulting in ever-more-frequent visits to Waterloo from Silicon Valley.

In November, 2011, YC partner Garry Tan made his first visit to the Communitech Hub, not long after Vidyard graduated YC and came back to keep building. During that visit, he met Mike McCauley, co-founder of then-unknown BufferBox, whose team was subsequently invited to YC.

Last October, on the strength of his YC connections, Vidyard CEO Michael Litt arranged for Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian – Y Combinator’s New York-based ambassador to the east coast - to host a Techtoberfest beer-and-pizza session at the Hub.

And this week, word surfaced that YC partner Harj Taggar would attend a Thursday session for budding startup talent at the University of Waterloo, followed by an evening appearance at a Litt-organized startup recruitment event at the Chainsaw Saloon in Waterloo.

Maybe Graham will come up and see for himself what’s happening in Waterloo some day soon. Until then, we’re happy to celebrate the compliment.